Africa! Africa!
The heart never leaves you – Africa! Africa!
Africa – the heartbeat
Africa – the song of doves
Africa – the roar of lions

Vast plains and raging rivers – Africa! Africa!
The heart never leaves you.

...And a lady in a red dress?
A glass of red.

We play conversational poker and come out with
The ace of spades and high-heels to match!

But I’ve never been to Vegas
And I’m not a gambling man -  
A glass of red!

Turn up the jazz
Let me take your coat
And after a dance -
A glass of red

Your lips of Juno
Are a glass of red!

Take my hand and lead the way
We’ll be buried in stuffy old second-hand book stores
Mumbling Homer and his Odyssey amongst dusty shelves
I would look no further for a book called
A glass of red
Written in blood
A thriller weaved post-apocalyptically

...but your kind ***** and firm sinews,
after all is said and all is done,
Are (your guessed it!)
A glass of red.

I don’t know what we are trying to say Native America…
White man and the Indian?
Fight for your right,
Fight for your white.
Apache -
Underlined in black "indian" ink Africa!

for Geraldene

The **** is fine, relaxes the brain and softens the body
And I keep the fire burning for a now deceased lover

This was long ago, and now
In the present,
I live with my mother who doesn’t understand my cannabis habit -
Forgive her

It means I have to play the game of avoidance
Which is tedious
But I don’t forget Mom is elderly now and freedom
is a thing of the next generation

Nor do I forget to love my mother with all my heart
For she, with all her faults,
with all her faults
Has a heart of gold, (excuse the cliché poets)

And nor do I demand anything
For my own heart is full of years
And the “inner” child now
(having adulted) has the freedom to speak
And, and, one day flows into the next like the colours of a rainbow

And whose not to like (parents aside)
Getting ******? It’s healthy when you compare it to chemicals.

But to turn back the clock (and the poem),
I keep a fire burning for a now lost love...
We were happy together in the “forest cabin” of our affair.
Bless you, bless you beyond the grave!

A hodgepodge of concepts,
Bluntly spoken it is a nightmare.

Were we ever gifted with our own voice,
Our own speech, our words and vocabulary?

To tempt the lion and tiger of
Genius from the dense jungle
Of neural pathways
Begetting the
Flight of fancy
And a solid idea:
The ****.

Strangely,
Last Wednesday
There was a snake at my door
And I could have been bitten.

Moral of the story:
Do not dress up the ego
With sweet metaphor
Else the snake of thought
Will consume itself
In the flames of self-pity
And the cat will go hungry.

Were a poem a woman
And its words her flesh